TAY DO UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE A STUDY ON THE DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS OF ENGLISH-MAJORED SOPHOMORES AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY Supervisor: Student’s name: Tra To Quyen Dang Thi Hanh, MA Student’s code: 1652220201029 Class: English 11A June, 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT My research could not be finished without the help of a lot of people. I would like to give my profound gratitude to all those who helped me to complete this research. First of all, I would like to send my sincere thanks to Tay Do University, especially the teachers of Faculty of Linguistics and Literature for bringing me the opportunity to conduct this research. Secondly, I want to express my honest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms.
Dang Thi Hanh, for her precious comments and enthusiastic guidance during the process of carrying out this research. She was always willing to help me correct every mistake in my research, provide me many useful references and give me lucid direction to lead my research to the right path. Besides, during the years of studying at Tay Do University, she was an enthusiastic and conscientious teacher who gave students necessary and valuable advice to study better. My research could not be completed successfully without her dedicated assistance.
Thirdly, I am very thankful to Ms. Bui Thi Truc Ly and Ms. Wa Thai Nhu Phuong for spending their valuable time on taking part in the teachers’ interview. Their supporting information was very precious to my study.
Fourthly, I would like to thank the sophomores in Bachelor of English course 13 for spending their time on joining in the questionnaire and students’ interview. Their cooperation was a very meaningful contribution to my research. Finally, I want to give my deep gratefulness to my family for supporting me the best condition and encouraging me throughout the years of studying. This is the motivation that helps me accomplish this study.
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .3 The significance of study .4 The organization of study. 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Definitions of writing and its importance .1 Definitions of writing .2 The importance of writing .1 Definitions of essay .2 Basic structure of English essays .3 Definitions of argumentative essay .4 The difficulties in writing argumentative essays .3 Organization and development of an argumentative essay. 15 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .1 Research questions and hypothesis .1 Interview for students .2 Interview for teachers. 21 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .1 Results of the questionnaire.2 Students’ English learning years .3 Students’ subjects and skills at high school.4 Students’ opinions about the most difficult skill .5 Students’ opinions about the importance of writing skill .6 Students’ practicing writing skill .7 Students’ self-evaluation on their writing competence .8 Students’ opinions about writing argumentative essays .2 Students’ difficulties in writing argumentative essays .3 Organization and development of an argumentative essay .2 Results of the interviews .1 Interview for students .2 Interview for teachers .1 Discussion about students’ background .2 Discussion about students’ difficulties in writing argumentative essays.
42 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS, LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. ix APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS. xv APPENDIX B: STUDENTS’ INTERVIEW QUESTIONS. xxi APPENDIX C: TEACHERS’ INTERVIEW QUESTIONS.
xxiii v LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Participants’ living environment. 23 Figure 2: Participants’ opinions about the most difficult skill. 25 Figure 3: Participants’ opinions about the importance of writing skill. 26 Figure 4: Participants’ confirmation about practicing writing skill.
27 Figure 5: Participants’ self-evaluation on their writing competence. 28 Figure 6: Participants’ opinions about writing argumentative essays. 29 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Basic structure of English essays. 8 Table 2: Participants’ English learning years.
23 Table 3: Subjects and skills that participants learned at high school. 24 Table 4: Participants’ problems about vocabulary. 30 Table 5: Participants’ problems about grammar. 31 Table 6: Participants’ problem about coherence.
33 Table 7: Participants’ difficulties in term of background knowledge. 34 Table 8: Participants’ difficulties in organization and development of an argumentative essay. 36 Table 9: Participants’ obstacles in term of critical thinking. 38 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CEFR: Common European Framework of Reference EFL: English as a Foreign Language IELTS: International English Language Test System L1: Language used as the first language L2: Language used as the second languge M.A: Master of Arts TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language vii ABSTRACT The research entitled “A study on the difficulties in writing argumentative essays of English-majored sophomores at Tay Do University” was conducted with the purpose of pointing out some common difficulties of sophomores in writing argumentative essays.
The participants of this study were 90 English-majored sophomores of course 13, and two teachers who teach English language at Tay Do University. In this study process, questionnaire and interview were used as two instruments to collect the data. The results of the research would show that English majored sophomores met difficulties in term of linguistic competence (vocabulary, grammar and coherence), organization and development of an argumentative essay, and the lack of critical thinking. viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 presents rationale, the aim and the significance of study, and the organization of study 1.1 Rationale In today’s global world, language plays an important role in human life.
Out of all the languages in the world, English is considered the international language to exchange information with other countries. In Vietnam, English is one of the necessary requirements to many people, especially students, who want to have good jobs with high salary or get promotion in their careers. As an international language, English is not only for communication but also for the academic requirement. To master English language effectively, the language learners need to develop four skills of English: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Of all the four skills, writing has always been considered as a crucial skill in the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language. It is more and more important to learn this skill because English writing is widely used in the international organizations and trading for business correspondence, advertisements, job applications and business reports. Besides, writing is one of important and integral parts of any tests or exams; thus, if students have excellent English writing skills, they will be easy to pass all their academic courses successfully. Moreover, they will have more opportunities when applying for any jobs compared to the other students especially in private companies that are involved at international level.
Additionally, writing itself is an important skill because it helps language learners to stimulate thinking and organize their ideas. Furthermore, it increases learners’ ability to summarize, analyze and criticize (Rao, 2007). Within the university environments, students have to deal with various types of written discourse including narration, description, exposition, and argumentation. In short, an 1 argumentative essay is one of the most important genres in academic writing, especially at the university level.
In fact, argumentation plays a significant role because it is one of the indispensable soft skills in our life. Having a good argumentative ability brings us lot of advantages. In academic settings, argumentative writing is an essential tool for students who have to write persuasively to make other people accept their point of view on a particular topic. For test-takers, an argumentative essay is a required genre to produce in different tests or exams such as CEFR tests, TOEFL, IELTS, etc.
In the workplace, individuals may try to persuade others to support their proposals or opinions. Obviously, competence in argumentative writing is especially vital for university students. However, argumentative writing has been confirmed by researchers to be the hardest model in writing (Ferretti, Andrews-Weckerly & Lewis, 2007; Neff-van Aertselaer & Dafouz-Milne, 2008). As English-majored students, we realize that English-majored students still cope with some difficulties in writing argumentative essays.
Students do not know how to write a good argumentative essay. To clarify, they could not write clearly, orderly, convincingly, and write an essay without audience awareness, clear supporting evidence, and refutation. Besides, linguistic competence (vocabulary, grammar, and coherence) and background knowledge are also factors that influence students’ writing ability. Being aware of students’ difficulties in writing argumentative essays, some previous researchers have investigated and found various difficulties in writing argumentative essays that students often encounter, for example, Rahmatunisa (2014), Zhu (2001), Ka- kan-dee and Kaur (2014).
However, there are few studies investigated on difficulties of English-majored sophomores at Tay Do University encounter in writing argumentative essays has been conducted. For this result, the research entitled “A study on the difficulties in writing argumentative essays of English-majored sophomores at Tay Do University” is conducted to explore deeply the reasons and help the English learners in general and the sophomores majoring in English at Tay Do University in particular 2 realize their own obstacles in writing argumentative essays. Hence, the researcher hopes that students can improve their writing skill positively.2 Research aims The aim of this study is to find out the difficulties in writing argumentative essays of English-majored sophomores at Tay Do University. Besides, this study is expected that students could restrict their difficulties and improve their writing skill positively.3 The significance of study The study is conducted to point out the difficulties in writing argumentative essays of English-majored sophomores at Tay Do University.
It helps learners realize their barriers in the writing process. Also, the findings may be useful for teachers in teaching and assessing students’ writing competence. Furthermore, based on the problems mentioned in this study, some solutions would be recommended to solve the problems to help students constructing an effective argumentative essay. Lastly, it will provide valuable information and make suggestions for later research concerned.4 The organization of study The study consists of five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Literature review Chapter 3: Research methodology Chapter 4: Results and discussion Chapter 5: Conclusion, implications, limitations, and recommendations 3 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter consists of five sections.
The first section states the definitions of writing and its importance. The second section presents the definitions of essay and basic structure of English essays. The third section indicates the definitions of argumentative essay. The fourth section analyzes the difficulties in writing argumentative essays and the final section mentions previous studies.1 Definitions of writing and its importance 2.1 Definitions of writing The experts provide various definitions of writing.
According to Rivers (1981), “writing is conveying information or expression of original ideas in a consecutive way in the new language” (p. As Brown (2001) claimed that “writing is a thinking process. Furthermore, he stated that writing can be planned and given with an unlimited number of revisions before its release” (p. Meanwhile, Elbow (1973) showed that writing is a two-step process.
The first process is figuring out the meaning and the second process is putting the meaning into language. Writing represents what we think. It is because the writing process reflects things, which stay in the mind. Students who are reluctant to write things down often suffer for this activity.
The students find difficulties when they start looking for some reasons to write and producing written sentences. Based on those definitions, it can be stated that writing is a complex activity in producing a qualified writing. Nunan (2003) indicated that writing is both a physical and mental act. At the most basic level, writing is the physical act of committing words or ideas to some medium.
On the other hand, writing is the mental work of inventing ideas, thinking about how to express them, and organizing them into statements and paragraphs that will be clear to a reader.